I'm making a long post that'll probably be wasted here, but **** it, here goes.

What you're doing here makes no sense. I don't mean overall, I mean specifically with the citadel/PVP/PVE changes that you are making. The T3 cruiser change, I think, was handled very well and I look forward to it.

However, your changes for the nullsec game will be disastrous, and here's why.

Risk and reward.

This is the entire idea behind nullsec; the idea that you can go and stake a claim, put money and assets on the line, and receive a reward for taking these risks. This idea was reflected in your changes to the Rorqual; you took a very expensive ship and made it worth using. Despite the fact that it prints ISK and allows the industrialization of nullsec, it also is vulnerable for 5 minutes at a time, giving an aggressive, knowledgeable attacker the opportunity to catch it. Not only that, it provides adequate time via the PANIC to allow a fight to occur.

Excellent game design. High risk, high reward, and an objective that holds value for both the attacker and defender. It really doesn't get better than that.

The problem, is that since citadels and with the impending phase-out of POS, Rorquals have become one of the few remaining reliable fight generators.

Why? Because mining is only half of the nullsec PVE experience, and running anomalies is incredibly safe. CCP, you are right that there is a problem with anomalies; they churn out great ISK for no risk with a carrier or super. They can sit perma-aligned with no timer and have all the time in the world to simply leave. No matter how excellent a tackler is, their skill is completely irrelevant to catching someone in a carrier or super rating. The issue here is that instead of increasing the RISK, you are decreasing the reward. To illustrate:

Now: Low risk, high reward
After patch: Low risk, lower reward
HOW IT SHOULD BE: High risk, high reward

Instead of nerfing fighters, affecting the entire meta, and ironically punishing the people who are probably making ISK on their main (rorquals can be multiboxed almost infinitely, meaning that lowering ISK per hour is less of a hit), you should be making it easier to kill capitals/supers running anomalies. Right now it is risk-free and it will continue to be so after the current changes.

There are myriad ways you could do this; more warp disruption rats(NPC HICs?), NSA disallowing warp, etc. You could even make changes so that Dreadnoughts are the premiere capital PVE ship. Make them the Rorqual of anomalies; they are almost perfect for it. They are stuck for 5 minutes at a time, incentivizing content. They tank well. They could have a PANIC-type module added to incentivize fighting.

Not only does this acheive your goal and decrease the raw amount of ISK being put out, it actively creates interesting conflicts and a cost/benefit to using them. Now, doesn't that sound better than just nerfing something by X%?

Think about what is happening, it's all connected:

• Citadels are completely awful to deal with as an attacker, so people don't attack them unless absolutely necessary.
• POS are decreasingly relevant even without their phaseout as Rorquals/Carriers make far more money.
• Sovwar is laughable in terms of encouraging real fleet-on-fleet warfare
• Roaming is pointless since tethering makes it impossible to fight over undock control, and everything that's not a Rorqual can easily escape long before you get there unless they **** up
• There are few incentives to hunt in hostile space; anyone in anomalies is pre-aligned and unless they really make a mistake, are entirely safe

You have effectively created a system where fighting is discouraged(nothing of value to fight over), attacking is discouraged, risk is discouraged, and there is nothing to do except make money in preparation for future conflict. Instead of punishing people for adapting to the environment you've created, why not change the environment?

Force people to make money with risk, but also give them the opportunity to form up and save their ratting ships. Simply hoping that people will fight eachother in the absence of any compelling reason to do so is not enough, and more than that, it's not in EVE's culture. Sure, people can pre-arrange fights now, but these are devoid of meaning since by definition neither side will risk anything it actually cares about.

Give an opportunity for combat to happen in space over the new R64s (Rorquals, carriers, etc). Right now Rorquals, while great, offer the only high-risk/high-reward personal PVE experience.

On a side note; I agree Pirate BS frequency needs to be reduced, but please show T1 BS some love also. They should have a central role in the null PVP meta.

An aside: I have been an active small-to-medium fleet FC for the better part of a decade. I am by no means amazing, but I have a pretty good understanding of how the meta and game design affects daily and short-term content. EVE has never been as "quiet" on a day-to-day basis as it is now; when I consider taking a fleet out, I stop myself. Why bother? I can't force anyone to fight me; they can just sit in a citadel or warp their aligned carrier off when my tackler enters system.

Literally all I do now is hunt rorquals because when I tackle that rorqual, I KNOW something will happen. I may get completely defeated, I may get a rorqual kill, or I might get a fight. Literally all of those options are good, not only for me as an FC but for the health of the game as a whole.

Okay, I'm calling it, that's all I'm gonna write.

Please listen. I love this game. Don't **** it up.